MD's Thoughts

Managing Directors Spa Industry Thoughts

Too Big! Too Small!

What determines the correct footprint and spend. Our MD reports on the driving forces within spa design.

Taking Spa Design and dissecting its values, all too many times, I like others in our industry fail to be astonished at the wastage and over elaboration of projects, when trying to woo their user.

Good spa design advice starts as unbiased discussion with the owner operator at the outset, establishing the goal of the investor and where possible tie in with the longer term development of the hotel to allow natural growth.

Money has been thrown at projects by owner operator or investors in the past and in many instances resulted in nothing more than a glorified leisure facility with treatment rooms, granted quality finishes, but this is certainly not the way to create a quality spa.

I know of people in our field ‘Design/Consulting’ that quiver at the idea of ‘Spa Expansion’ Why? Any successful spa, like any good business needs to have the ability to grow!! It’s how this is achieved correctly that counts, this can only be done by careful planning by the design team at the outset.

We like any good design practice require ‘good lead in times’ paramount in providing the purchaser with the end result that can deliver on all fronts, these being flexibility in growth, timeless aesthetics, a full understanding of the operational requirements and a design that provides the user with simplicity of understanding the journey.

The design team are a crucial element in delivering all of this, but all too often are considered surplus to requirements’ the client decides to use the already appointed architect with snippets of advice from ‘the consultant’, don’t get me wrong we know some excellent consultants who have worked on many quality projects producing an excellent final product, but that’s not the rule of thumb.

If we ask the question of the consultant “what seems to be the weak point in the design development” on many occasions you will hear, the link between consultant and architect, why? because content and scale are vastly important, although these points are sadly lacking in some instances resulting in a final product that only achieves 75 -80% of its expectations due to the content being incorrect and the scales of wet / dry, quiet zones and retail elements being over or under sized.

Take the thermal room experience as an example, a very popular element of the overall offering, whilst being one of the most expensive elements to build and run, some of the larger projects would run out at 3 – 400k with finishes and lighting.

Such large expenditure demands the right offering for the user, or you would think so!

Wrong! too many spas have been sucked in to having facilities which many users have little clue what they are about, believe me we have witnessed this on our own projects and then corrected our stance over later years when putting forward our design criteria to the client.

Atlam Design Worldwide Limited

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Managing Directors Spa Industry Thoughts

Of course certain rooms provide that wonderful photographic shot for the hotel and yes if the user is educated in the way these rooms operate and what they offer, then o.k.! This is not however the case in many instances, we have been made aware of hotels reducing their thermal experience area for exactly this reason wasting thousands of pounds.

The Philosophy I only have to think back to the leisure design business some 25 years ago when we were asked to design swimming pools that were larger than the facility recently built in the same locality, if their pool was 20 metres long then we must have 25 metres to be better !!

It was the wrong approach then, but the same nagging comments are still used in the spa industry by some clients and operators.

Creativity Your spa should be ‘your spa’ not lead by what is expected in the industry but what fits your overall guest experience, your clientele and your budget, take good , sensible and unbiased advice before signing that build contract and I can assure you it will be money well spent.

Neville Brownhill Company Director

Atlam Design Worldwide Limited

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Managing Directors Spa Industry Thoughts